Hollywood tells much of Willson's story—but not all. Here's who Willson was, and what happened to him.

It's not an exaggeration to say that the talent agent Henry Willson invented Rock Hudson. Depicted by Jim Parsons in the Netflix show Hollywood, Willson was a powerful figure in 1940s Hollywood. He was also a controversial one.

The mechanics of Willson's star-making machine are introduced in "Hooray for Hollywood: Part 2," Hollywood’s second episode. Roy Fitzgerald (Jake Picking), a farm boy from Indiana, walks into Henry’s office. He leaves renamed Rock Hudson, and on a trajectory to stardom—never mind the fact that he can’t act. As Willson liked to say, "The acting can be added later."

“I know in the first 30 seconds if someone has got what it takes to be a star. And you, believe it or not, got it. You got picture potential,” Henry says in Hollywood, before listing Rock’s new regimen of exercise, tanning, and even lowering his vocal cords.

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As Rock soon learns, signing on as Henry’s client has more strings attached than the 10% commission fee. A demeaning predator, Henry often expects sexual favors from his clients—not to mention private audiences for his strange dance routines. For all their physical differences, Henry and his clients, including Hudson, often had something major in common: They were gay, and had to keep their true identities hidden.

Ironically enough, playing this complicated figure was a “joyous” experience for Parsons. "It was just about as rewarding for me as anything I've ever gotten to do. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he is an outlandish character, and was in real life. It's a candy shop of choices and opportunities,” the Big Bang Theory actor tells OprahMag.com.

He even choreographed his own moves for "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Salome, culminating in an unforgettable performance that even Meryl Streep called brilliant.

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Whereas his version of Henry Willson got a kind of redemption in Hollywood’s alternate history, the real Willson fell from power and died in poverty in 1978. Here’s what you need to know.

Willson had a very specific type of client.

Part talent scout, part talent agent, part career coach, part well-connected media mastermind, Willson really did help his clients achieve stardom—but he only went after a certain type.

Willson was known for cultivating unexperienced, handsome young men, and turning them into stars who fit the "beefcake" physique popular in that era. His clients included Guy Madison, Tab Hunter, Robert Wagner, Troy Donahue, Rory Calhoun, and Yale Summer, according to Vanity Fair. The ploy paid off especially well with Rock Hudson, Willson's most famous client, who ended up being called the "Baron of Beefcake."

Henry Willson (right) in 1935

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Further, many of Willson's clients, including Hudson and Tab Hunter, were closeted gay men. "He would find these young guys who almost all came from horrible home situations—with broken marriages and absent fathers—and take them on as clients…He was a tormented gay man who preyed on tormented gay men. He would be their manager and make them sexually service him," Hollywood creator Ryan Murphy told Vanity Fair.

Tab Hunter, one of his clients and a veritable heartthrob of the '50s and '60s, recalled being part of Willson's "stable of young colts" in his autobiography. "His routine was to wine and dine you...then come on to you. How things developed was up to whomever Henry was pursuing. If you put the brakes on, Henry used his 'out' line: 'Come on, you know I was only joking.'"

Hunter says he never crossed professional boundaries with Willson, but others did. "Henry had a magnetic personality, but it certainly wasn't strong enough to lure me onto the casting couch...not everybody who wanted Henry to make them a star had such boundaries," he wrote.

He once lived with a client.

Willson developed a reputation for having sexual relations with clients. Early on in his career, though, he reportedly lived with one: Up-and-coming actor Trent "Junior" Durkin. The two are rumored to have been lovers, which Hollywood's version of Henry Willson mentions in a monologue.

Durkin came to Hollywood at the age of 15, and was known for playing Huckleberry Finn in a 1931 film adaptation of Mark Twain's book. Tragically, he passed away in an automobile accident on May 4, 1935 at the age of 19. Willson was 23 at the time.

Willson arranged Rock Hudson's marriage.

In 1955, Willson arranged Hudson's marriage to Phyllis Gates, a 30-year-old secretary, in an effort to keep rumors about Hudson's sexuality at bay. "She was ideal. She had the aura that you would want for a young woman who was going to be married to Rock Hudson. She sort of came with this air of county fairs and church socials about her," Griffin said on NPR.

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The exact nature of their relationship remains a mystery. Was Gates aware of Hudson's sexuality? Or was she duped? Gates filed for divorce in 1958, and wrote about their three-year marriage in the 1986 memoir, My Husband, Rock Hudson.

In the book, Griffin says, "She sort of lays all of the blame for the disintegration of the marriage at Rock's feet and also would like the reader to believe that she had been manipulated, both by Henry Willson and Rock himself, into participating in this sham marriage."

Allegedly, he had contacts in the Mafia.

This Hollywood storyline might actually be real. According toThe Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, Willson's biography, the agent used any means necessary to keep his stars' image clean—including "off-duty L.A.P.D. cops and Mob ties," per the book's synopsis.

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Hudson fired Willson in 1966.

Rock Hudson was Willson's "bread and butter" client, as Griffin said on NPR. By the '60s, Hudson's career was declining—and so was Willson's, whose alcoholism had worsened. In 1966, Hudson fired Willson over the phone.

According to Willson's biography, the angry agent responded, “All you have going for you is your face. You don’t have the talent! I have a jar of acid and I’m going to throw it in your face."

Willson died alone, and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Hollywood's finale(spoiler!) gives Henry Willson a redemption. While Hudson does not forgive him, Willson finances a movie that features Hudson playing a gay leading man.

The real Willson did not have a happy ending, or even a glimmer of one. Willson became destitute during his struggle with alcoholism and addiction. In 1978, Willson passed away of cirrhosis and was buried in an unmarked grave in North Hollywood's Valhalla Memorial Park. He was 67.

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